The winter season brings many things: freezing temperature, inches and inches of snow, a lack of sunshine, dreariness, the inability to go outside, and especially the cold and flu. It is important to know the best practices to keep yourself, and your dorm or apartment clean. www.cdc.gov gives six habits to do just that.Avoid close interactions – Keep contacts with sick people to a minimum and if you are sick, keeping a distance from others is important.

1.Stay home – Staying home helps to keep the people that could become affected at a low rate. This also helps with healing. Staying home and resting is important.

2. Covering your mouth and nose – This helps to decrease the spread of germs and allows for less people to get the same sickness that was spread to you.

3. Washing your hands – Do this after using the bathroom, being in public places, after you cough, and after being around sick people. Using soap and water is the best option, but if that is unavailable hand sanitizer is the second best.

4. Keep from touching your eyes, nose, and mouth – These are the places that are the most susceptible to germs, so avoiding this will help prevent sickness.

5. Adopting healthy habits – Drinking water, sleeping enough, working out, eating healthy foods, and getting in the habit of cleaning your room with disinfectant sprays or wipes are good practices to keep.

Although these are extremely good practices to keep, sometimes it is impossible to keep from catching the common cold and flu. For those that are sick, www.cdc.gov also gives the differences in symptoms between the cold and flu.

If these symptoms are occurring, don’t wait to get treated! Most symptoms will subside within a week, but after a week, a visit to the doctor is important. For those that can’t get to their family doctor, the campus doctor is available most days of the week! Stay healthy everyone!